This thread reminds me about the time my wife (Japanese) hemmed my daughter's hakama. It took her 2 hours to do it by hand and then iron it. She grumbled the whole time , we heard about how her mother and grandmother did this and she swore as a young girl she would never do it. After finishing she told us that she would never, EVER do it again!

Two years later she took out the hem as my daughter had grown 5 centimeters!

LOL !!! great story!!!
I made a hak once... Swore never again. It wasn't sewing, it was doing origami on 5 yards of dead weight cotton twill...